HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF
HUMAN SERVICES
FEM 3108
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
INTRO
• HS existed since the beginning of time.
• Current context of HS - late 1800s.
• The social welfare policy was based on how
the poor were treated.
• The social welfare policy was based on the
needs of the societies (early, agricultural+
horticultural, industrial).
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
SCENARIO OF THE EARLY
SOCIETES
 Hunters and gatherers, nomadic and
sedentary.
 Social services: family, clan, tribe – group
solidarity.
 Fulfill basic needs.
 Uphold principles of egalitarianism.
 Economic activity – communal cooperation.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
SCENARIO IN AGRICULTURAL +
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES
 Initially, social welfare - responsibility of the tribe.
 Concept of property, social stratification, social status
emerged.
 Mass agriculture activities lead to slavery.
 Egalitarianism gave way to more social inequalities.
 Later, social welfare is the responsibility of the landlords.
 Social welfare became the core aspect in economic and
political system - enacted law and regulation for social
control.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
SCENARIO IN ICT SOCIETIES
 Rely on others for things or services - power of money.
 Social relations are influenced by capital or human
resource ownership, provision of manpower for pay, skills
or professional competencies and social network.
 Gaps between rich and poor.
 Social benefits/welfare - responsibility of employer or
work organization.
 Centrality of governance - state.
 Social welfare - formal institution with own structure.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
REVISIT THE HISTORY:
1155-1150s
 The Feudal System of the Middle Ages
Lords and Serfs.
Serf were considered the legal property of the
Lords – complete control over the serfs, could sell
or give away as deemed fit.
Lords responsible for the serfs’ care and support in
exchange for farming their land.
Mores – No shame in poverty. Poverty within
society was unavoidable and the poor is the
necessary component of society.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
REVISIT THE HISTORY:
1155-1150s
 Late Middle Ages:
No secularism.
Poor care handled at local level.
Supported by mandatory taxes or compulsory
tithing.
Relative success: population almost permanent,
residency requirements were strictly enforced – the
poor were known within the community.
The concept of community as family.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
REVISIT THE HISTORY:
MID 1500s - EARLY 1600s
 Poor Laws of England
Poor care became less personal.
England’s relief act of 1536 - responsibility for
dealing with the poor at the local level .
Complete intolerance of idleness (unsympathetic).
Worthy vs. Unworthy (Vagrant) Poor.
Poor: pregnant women, person extremely ill, person
over 60 yrs.
Vagrant: liable for punishment.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
REVISIT THE HISTORY:
THE ELIZABETHAN POOR
LAWS - 1601
• An organized merging of England’s earlier social
welfare legislation.
• Three driving principles:
1. The primary responsibility for provision lay with one’s
family.
2. Poor relief should be handled at the local level.
3. Individuals should not be allowed to move to a new
community if unable to provide for themselves
financially – residency requirements.
• Indoor and Outdoor relief
• Served
as
foundation
for
social
policy/legislation in colonial America.
welfare
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
REVISIT THE HISTORY:
CHARITY ORGANIZATION
SOCIETIES
• Genesis of the social work discipline.
• Marked one of the first organized efforts within the
U.S. to provide charity to the poor.
• Began in about 1870.
• Served as umbrella organization for large network of
local charities.
• Cash assistance considered “evil” because of belief
that it encouraged dependence.
• Had “friendly visitors” who made home visits .
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
REVISIT THE HISTORY:
THE NEW DEAL AND THE
SOCIAL ACT 1935
•
•
•
•
•
1929 – Stock Market Crash.
Great depression led to poverty in all level of society.
Marked first federal involvement in social welfare.
Passage of many social welfare programmes.
Social Security Act 1935.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
SOCIAL WORK
• NASW (National Assoc. Social Work) – declared 2008
as the 110th Anniversary of the Social work
Profession.
• However, formalised training of social work recorded:
First social work training course in the US (1899).
First true social work school in Amsterdam in
1899.
First social work practice begin 1895 in London.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
ORIGIN OF SOCIAL
WORK (SW)
 Social work grew out of the urban destitution – post-Industrial
Revolution England and the government’s response to this
situation through relief for the poor.
 As Midley (1981, p.17) put it,
• As the rural poor were drawn into and concentrated in
the industrialising cities during the nineteenth century,
the problem of urban destitution (poverty) became
more acute and conventional public poor relief
provisions were strained;
• social work attempted to provide an alternative which
would lessen the burden of public assistance borne by
taxpayers, be more humane and seek to rehabilitate the
destitute (poor).
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
THE ARISE OF
SETTLEMENT HOUSE
MOVEMENT (SHM)
 Toynbee Hall in London, Jane Addams in U.S.
 In the US, many new immigrants arriving, SHM to
help people who are often poor and had difficulty
fitting into American Culture (Dumount, 1998).
 As a bridge between middle classes and those in
poor areas - (Dieser, 2005) and,
 Through the cross-class contacts and the recreational
and educational activities that were arranged, to
‘inculcate moral values and reform the habits of slum
dwellers’ - a bridge between cultures (Midley, 1981,
p.22).
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONTINUE
• Role - to help the immediate neighbourhood
surrounding the house.
• Focus on comprehensive care: housing, food, health
care, English language lessons, child care, and
general advocacy.
• Settlement work - seen as one important set of roots
for the profession’s embrace of community work, for
it advocated community-based responses to social
problems and social reforms.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
SOCIAL WELFARE IN ISLAM






Established over 1400 years ago.
Requirements of faith- one of the pillars of Islam.
1/5 of all income go to the poor (A Quran 2:3).
Believers practice regular charity (AlQuran 2:43).
Care for the orphans (Al Quran 2:177).
The formal concepts of welfare and pension were
introduced in early Islamic law as forms of zakat (charity),
since the time of the Abbasid Caliph Al Mansur in the 8th
century.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONTINUE
 The taxes (including zakat and jizya) collected in the
treasury of an Islamic government was used to provide
income for the needy, including the poor, elderly,
orphans, widows, and the disabled.
 According to the Islamic jurist Al-Ghazali (Algazel, 10581111), the government was also expected to store up
food supplies in every region in case a disaster or famine
occurs.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONTINUE
 The Caliphate was thus one of the earliest welfare
states (Crone, 2005).
 From the 9th century, funds from the treasury were
also used towards the waqf (charitable trust), often
for the purpose of building of schools and hospitals
(Crone, 2005).[
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
COMPARISON WITH
EUROPEAN CONTINENT
• As points out by Rowling (1997), European continent
was and is highly varied and often in marked contrast
to that of the United Kingdom and United States.
• Method of dissemination - Multiple and varied
structures through which services are delivered.
• State vs Family Role - These reflect very different
views on the role of the state in the direct or indirect
provision of welfare and on the responsibility of the
family, and more particularly of women, for the
survival and well-being of dependent family
members (p. 114).
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONTRASTING NORTH
AND SOUTHERN EUROPE
• Northern Europe
 Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Sweden, UK, Norway,
Ireland, Iceland, Estonia.
• Southern Europe
 Spain, Portugal, Southern France, Monaco, Italy,
Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Serbia, Cyprus,
Turkey.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONTRASTING NORTH
AND SOUTHERN EUROPE
 Northern Europe - Long-established tradition of state
delivery of welfare services, mostly through local
government structures.
 Southern Europe - there was no tradition of active
state involvement in welfare.
 However, whatever the local tradition historically, a
mixed-welfare system is emerging in most Europe,
influenced most recently by the social politics of the
European Union.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONTINUE
 In contrast, the new industrialised countries,
founded by European states as colonies, tended to
inherit their social work structures along with the
colonial social welfare system.
 For example:
 The United Kingdom exported its welfare system
and its charitable organisation to Australia.
– Training courses were established to provide inservice training for the staff of these departments
and organisations.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
SOCIAL WORK IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
 Strongly influenced by the ongoing developments in
the UK and US - as many social work leaders went to
these countries for advance education in social
work.
 Ties of Australian SW to the UK and the US have
been lamented by some observers, as having held
back the emergence of an indigenous profession
within this and other former colonies.
 However, with time, these countries began to forge
heir own indigenous approach to social work - albeit
their roots and the basic systems inherited from the
UK and US.
SOCIAL WORK IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
 Strongly influenced by the ongoing developments in
the UK and US - as many social work leaders went to
these countries for advance education in social
work.
 Ties of Australian SW to the UK and the US have
been lamented by some observers, as having held
back the emergence of an indigenous profession
within this and other former colonies.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
SOCIAL WORK IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
 Early days – SW accompanied colonialism essentially to meet
the needs and aspirations of the colonial powers, rather than to
allow SW to make a contribution to these countries
development :
• modern civilized world.
• Administrative from home country.
• Health, education, and law and order, in urban areas but
often confined to the need and support of those classes
whose roles were important to the colonial system.
 With the needs of many others ignored except where Christian
or humanitarian motivated services reached out (more often
than not civilise and Christianize rather than meet welfare or
development needs (see Hoogvlet, 2001, p.20).
IMPACT OF
COLONIALISATION
 Imposed a western stamp on early SW development.
 It laid some foundations for modern social welfare and
SW developments.
 However, the western stamp in SW is often perceived to
be inappropriate forms of SW education and practice.
 On the other hand, countries without any direct colonial
influence had not develop any roots at all.
 Created a contrasted phenomena – reform for the
former colonies; while the others waited the
introduction of appropriate SW systems.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONTINUE
 As Midgley (1981, p. 60) comments,
• To promote modern SW and motivated by the demands of
modernisation, SW experts designed curricula which
replicated the content of western social work training,
• Urged that SW courses be established in universities and
recommended the adoption of western professional
standards.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
OTHER COUNTRIES
EXPERIENCES
 INDIA – Industrial social work had thrived from an
early stage (Bose, 1992, p.75)
– where social work programs possessing a labour
market can be divided into:
Labour welfare and personnel management
graduates who identify with management.
Social workers who focus on the labour force.
 EGYPT – According to Abo-El-Nasr (1997, p.206), the
keynote of the early practice of SW in the country was
in 2 fields: community development projects in rural
areas and schools in urban areas.
OTHER COUNTRIES
EXPERIENCES
Perceived as an ‘adjunct or auxiliary (support) to
the achievement of the primary organisational goals
of education, medicine and production.’
 The PHILIPPINES, Midley (1981, p. 58):
Dept of Social Welfare is the major employer of
social workers.
Concerned chiefly with the welfare of the
handicapped, the unwanted and the unloved, like
the orphans and waifs who either ran away from
home or were turned out by their parents.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
OTHER COUNTRIES
EXPERIENCES
 Hence, the child’s welfare/child care was among the
first responsibilities assumed by public welfare
services in the Philippines.
 Very urban-oriented, and this in these early stages
lacked relevance to the (developmental and rural)
needs of the Philippines.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONTINUE

The practise of SW differ from country to
country:
– Emphasis the strength of the profession, and in
the details of professional education and
practices.
– Reflecting in large part the socio-cultural
economic differences in prevailing environments
but also historical factors.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.
CONCLUSION
• First: Social work in US & much Europe – indigenous
response to the condition of the late 19th century life
(by-product
of
industrial
revolution,
harsh
employment condition).
• Second: SW was introduced in Asia and Africa by
American & European experts to address the problems
of so-called underdevelopment.
• Most recently, introduction or re-introduction of
Modern SW in countries of the former Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe.
SA’ODAH BINTI AHMAD, JPMPK, FEM.